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The Art & Craft of Fiction: A Practitioner's Manual

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  • Pulp Rag: Typing a novel

    Let’s talk about NaNoWriMo today. Because lots of people are confused about what it’s for.

    NaNoWriMo is not about getting you a novel to sell.

    It’s not. . .

    Read the full essay on Pulp Rag.

    4 Comments

4 Responses to “Pulp Rag: Typing a novel”

  1. christopher ryan said on November 11th, 2009 at 1:02 am

    http://htmlgiant.com/?p=18668

    #NaNoWriMo Tip: Reenergize your writing by changing your workspace. Move out of your parents’ basement.

    #NaNoWriMo Tip: Rehearse for your imminent book tour by showing up drunk at a Borders and telling everyone “I’m here to sign my books.”

    #NaNoWriMo Tip: Add tension by making the gender of your narrator indeterminate. This works for race too. And age. And number of nipples.

    #NaNoWriMo Tip: Writing about a brilliant professor who solves 1,000-year-old mysteries? This is for you. Why does my cat puke in my shoes?

    #NaNoWriMo tip: “Write about what you know” is good advice, unless you’re OJ Simpson.

    #NaNoWriMo Tip: RT @wshspeare Take advantage of the rich tradition of stealing other writers’ ideas and words when you run out of your own.

    #NaNoWriMo tip: Use foreshadowing to hint what’s to come. E.g., have the vampire say “I want to suck your blood” before he sucks blood.

    #NaNoWriMo tip: Novelists should dress for success just like everyone else. Failing that, novelists should at least dress.

  2. Victoria said on November 11th, 2009 at 9:51 am

    Chris, why do I have the impression you’ve tried #2?

    Just so everyone knows, these tips are from the website at the top of the comment, collected from the tweets of Mark Sample at @samplereality.

    #NaNoWriMo tip: It reads a lot clearer if you make sure your fingers are on the right keys before you start typing.

    Victoria

  3. christopher ryan said on November 11th, 2009 at 11:43 am

    I am way ahead of the game. I moved out of my parents’ basement at 25.

  4. Victoria said on November 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    Yeah, I couldn’t wait to move out the week before I turned 18. I came back for a year when I was 26, and boy howdy, they treated me a LOT better! My dad even kept the car full of gas, and I drove it whenever I wanted. My mom did my laundry and cooked my meals. They paid all the bills. Of course, I was in and out of the hospital that whole year, which put a real damper on things, but anyway it was great to not be responsible for my own support for awhile, once I knew what a pain that is.

    Victoria

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Upcoming Release: March 2010
All aspects of writing fiction explored copiously, luxuriously, minutely, indiscriminately, and with a certain amount of personal prejudice.

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Bhaichand Patel is the author of two nonfiction books: Chasing the Good Life (Penguin Books India, October, 2006), and Happy Hours (Penguin Books India, October, 2009). I recently edited Patel's debut novel, When the Streets Were Dark and Cold.

Although my contribution to Baby Jesus Pawn Shop was only a peer critique and participation in a standing ovation, in 2009 I edited two nonfiction essays for my friend Lucia Orth.

The poet Chris Ryan is the author of The Bible of Animal Feet (Farfalla Press, 2007). He has new stories forthcoming in Pank, Anemone Sidecar, and A Cappella Zoo. I edited Ryan's debut novel The Ishmael Blade.